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‘SpongeBob SquarePants’ Pulls Upcoming Episode Over Pandemic Plotline

Nickelodeon said in a statement that it will not air a Season 12 “clam flu” installment “due to sensitivities surrounding the global, real-world pandemic.”

SpongeBob Squarepants has pulled an episode from its current 12th season, titled “The Kwarantined Crab,” due to storyline concerns. In a statement, Nickelodeon confirmed to Deadline Tuesday that the episode “enters on a virus storyline, so we have decided to not air it due to sensitivities surrounding the global, real-world pandemic.”

IGN first reported the news Friday, describing an episode that finds Bikini Bottom’s health inspector—seen previously in episodes including Season 3’s “The Nasty Patty”—investigating a case of “Clam Flu.” Patrons are forced to quarantine inside the the Krusty Krab, IGN reports, where they grow mistrustful of one another and throw anyone believed to have the virus into the restaurant’s freezer. Nickelodeon also told IGN that it had pulled “Mid-Life Crustacean,” an older episode, back in 2018 “following a standards review in which we determined some story elements were not kid-appropriate.”